Message from the dean

MESSAGE

Dean, Faculty of Dental Science, Graduate School of Dental Science, School of Dentistry

Fusanori Nishimura, DDS, PhD

The School of Dentistry, Kyushu University started off as the Division of Dentistry in the School of Medicine which was founded in 1922. The School of Dentistry separated from the School of Medicine in June 1967 and became independent. We celebrated our 50th Anniversary in 2017. Kyushu Imperial University was founded in 1911 and our School of Dentistry was established about 10 years later. Since establishment, our School of Dentistry has been providing high level Dental education and at the same time engaging in cutting edge research both within Japan and overseas. We have also been providing highly advanced dental service at our affiliated Kyushu University Hospital. As a result, many of our graduates are now playing important roles in the Dental Universities both in Japan and overseas as professors or associate professors. In addition, many of them are taking on leadership positions in organizations such as the Japan Dental Federation and Japan Dental Association and supporting the development of Dentistry in Japan.

As part of our 50th year anniversary celebrations, our School of Dentistry created our new logo mark (Figure 1). This logo mark represents concepts of ”global”, “transmission of information”, “Dentistry”, and “future” and based on these key words, we aim to become the “Global Hub for Dental Science”. We also created a new slogan, “Inheritance”, “Breakthrough”, and “Initiative” to face the challenges of the next half century. We inherited the great history and academic achievement built by our ancestors, and we seek to make further breakthrough, and ultimately become the top leading institute in the field of Dentistry in the world. From now on, we plan to focus on conducting high level research and development in dental and craniofacial medicine, and their clinical application.

The Japanese government started to encourage development of the graduate schools in 2000, and we have been working to enhance our education, research and clinical practices under the philosophy “Overall Well-being through Oral Health”. Japan is well known as having one of highest elderly population in the world and there is a need to promote and preserve healthy longevity. In 2015, based on the concept that “Oral health is the secret to healthy longevity” we established the OBT Research Center to conduct comprehensive and focused research on the science of oral function (Oral health) → brain function (Brain health) → total health (Total health). OBT research center has since steadily produced outstanding results. In addition, we also established the Dent-craniofacial Development and Regeneration research center in 2021 to build a regenerative dentistry world hub. Based on the philosophies above we plan to further develop our education, research and clinical practices, and hopefully this leads to increased longevity in the general population. In particular, in research activities, we plan to consolidate, focus, streamline, and revitalize research by focusing on these two research centers.

Our faculty also aims to promote internationalization and is actively building and expanding our network overseas, while trying to increase the opportunities for both our undergraduate and graduate students to study abroad. We hope that by providing affordable study abroad programs it would encourage outstanding students to want to study abroad. At the same time, we also welcome outstanding international students to join us. Currently, we are focusing on getting more students from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regions to join us and this initiative has received positive reviews from the global community. We hope that through these efforts we can nurture students with a global perspective. As many of you are aware, not only education but also clinical activities and student opportunities to study abroad were greatly affected by the corona pandemic. However, the pandemic is now well under control and we are finally able to see light at the end of the tunnel. Our faculty members are ready for the challenges of the post and beyond of Corona pandemic.

On a final note, I really hope all that all our faculty staff and students will feel proud to be able to study and conduct research at Kyushu University, a university which has a long history of more than a 110 years. I also hope that to steer our faculty/undergraduate and graduate school to become an institute that is highly reviewed by the Dental schools and universities in Japan and the world. Our ultimate goal is to build one of the greatest educational and research institute in the field of Dentistry of all time.

Dean, Faculty of Dental Science, Graduate School of Dental Science, School of Dentistry
Fusanori Nishimura, DDS, PhD

ロゴマーク

Figure 1